STREET FIGHT

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OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS about controversy surrounding the programs of the Grand Central Partnership, a business-improvement district (BID) created to improve the neighborhood of midtown (i.e. remove homeless from streets, clean up area). Ten years ago, the area around Grand Central Terminal, in the heart of New York City, was a dismal symbol of urban decline. Now, due to the efforts of the Partnership, the area is cleaner, and there are fewer homeless people loitering on Vanderbilt Avenue or Bryant Park. In addition to cleaning the area, the Partnership established a drop-in center for the homeless at an old parochial school, St. Agnes, which offers the homeless food and a place to sleep, as well as counselling, job-readiness training, and housing placement. In addition to working to get homeless people off the streets, the Partnership homeless-outreach services reach out to banks and non-profit agencies. The Partnership is unusual among BIDs in its indifference to democratic oversight and accountability, as well as in its bolder and more entrepreneurial spirit. In April, a New York Times article reported that the Partnership had enlisted "goon squads,O largely composed of former or current homeless people, operating within the Partnership's homeless-outreach program to threaten, bully, and attack homeless people in order to force them from doorways, bank vestibules, plazas and sidewalks all over Manhattan. As a result of this article, the Department of Housing and Urban Development revoked a large grant and the Manhattan District Attorney's office opened an investigation. Jeffrey Grunberg, the executive director of the Partnership's Social Services Corporation, stands behind the outreach program, but Dan Biederman, the Partnership's president, admits there were some flaws. The Partnership's biggest critic is the Coalition for the Homeless, which accused the Partnership of actively or tacitly encouraging a pattern of abuse.